South Greene did just enough in the end to survive Chuckey-Doak’s comeback attempt and left Lower Afton with a 65-60 win on Friday night to secure the top seed in the District 1-2A Tournament.
“It feels good and it feels like the pressure is off now. We ended up going 8-2. We knew if we’d have lost it would’ve been a three-way tie, so we controlled our destiny tonight,” Lady Rebels Head Coach Stephen Gregg stated.
Chuckey-Doak may have hit its stride at the right time and are playing some very good basketball in February. It was a tougher test than many expected it to be for South Greene. Three times it held a double-digit lead and Chuckey-Doak found ways to erase all three of those leads. The Lady Knights never went away and never quit.
“I felt like Chuckey-Doak wanted it tonight and they were coming after us. But we did enough to win,” Coach Gregg said.
South Greene’s night was made harder because of Chuckey-Doak’s hot shooting night. The Lady Knights hit 10 three-pointers. The Lady Rebels hit 8 of their own and 5 of those came from senior Ari Hoese.
Hoese may have hit close to half a dozen trifectas, but Kortnei Bailey delivered another 28-point night and proved her worth by leading all scorers. Hoese finished with 16 points. Paisley Brobeck scored 11 points and made some big free throws in the end.
Chuckey-Doak put four players in double figures. Carlene Bishop led the way with a team-high 18 points. Chloe Kirkpatrick carried last night’s hot-shooting performance into tonight with 17. Kori Hollifield had 14 points with 4 threes and Jayden Myers scored 10.
South Greene improved to 17-11 (8-2) with the win. Chuckey-Doak dropped to 5-21 (2-8) with the loss. South Greene clinched the No. 1 seed in next week’s District 1-2A Tournament and will play the winner of Wednesday’s play-in game between West Greene and Chuckey-Doak. Chuckey-Doak will be the No. 5 seed.
Friday’s high-stakes matchup started with a South Greene bucket on their first possession courtesy of Sam Birdwell. Chuckey-Doak’s first lead of the game came after Carlene Bishop swished a three-pointer from beyond the arc. Bishop made a layup next and made it 7-4. The game’s leading scorer, Kortnei Bailey, made two layups on low block and trimmed it to 9-8.
The last layup started a 9-0 run that helped South Greene regain its lead. Ari Hoese made her first of five threes and gave South Greene an 11-9 advantage. Bailey scored four-straight to end the quarter and South Greene led 15-9.
The Lady Knights heated up in the second, but it took them awhile to get going. Kori Hollifield splashed a three-pointer and cut it to three, but South Greene went on an 11-4 run following that three to hold a 26-16 lead. Carlene Bishop’s second three-pointer cut it to 26-21 and another triple from Hollifield cut it to three, 27-24. Paisley Brobeck sank a mid-range bucket to slow the run, but Hollifield responded with another three and Jayden Myers went coast-to-coast to tie the score, 29-29.
The Lady Knights finished the quarter on a 13-4 run, but the Lady Rebels led 30-29 at the halftime break.
The run reached a peak at 15-4 with Kori Hollifield opening up the second half with a basket and gave Chuckey-Doak a short-lived lead. Ari Hoese netted a big three to take the lead back, 33-31. Jayden Myers went coast-to-coast again for a layup to tie it. Hoese sank another big three to break the tie again. Alexa Gabbard scored a second-chance layup off the glass and started extending the lead. Hoese landed with another huge three, her third of the quarter, and Kortnei Bailey pulled up for an easy mid-range and blew the lead back up to ten points at 47-37.
South Greene led 50-43 going into the fourth.
Chloe Kirkpatrick began the fourth with a three. Sam Birdwell responded with a three of her own and Paisley Brobeck secured a layup. Bailey sank a three and handed South Greene their biggest lead yet at 12 points, 61-49, with 3:45 to go.
Many people thought Chuckey-Doak was out of it at this point. Down by a dozen with less than four remaining, but the Lady Knights finished the game with an 11-4 run and almost came back to win.
Chloe Kirkpatrick started with a layup around the three-minute mark and Carlene Bishop nailed another three-pointer. Chuckey-Doak trailed 61-54 with 2:20 left. Kortnei Bailey netted a much-needed layup and made it a nine-point game, 63-54. Carlene Bishop made a clutch three with 1:28 remaining and cut it to six. Chuckey-Doak caused havoc and stole the ball from South Greene and Chloe Kirkpatrick drilled a three with 45 seconds remaining. The new score was 63-60. They caused havoc again and forced another turnover and had an opportunity to cut into the lead or tie it with 30 seconds left, but missed their opportunity and failed to make a shot.
Paisley Brobeck made two free throws in the final 30 seconds on two different attempts at the charity stripe and helped ice Friday’s high-stakes matchup.
South Greene prevailed 65-60 and secured the regular season championship in the process. “We definitely wanted to be the one and we secured that tonight,” Gregg mentioned.
Kortnei Bailey delivered another 28-point night and led all scorers. Ari Hoese finished with 16 points. Paisley Brobeck scored 11 points.
Chuckey-Doak put four players in double figures. Carlene Bishop led the way with a team-high 18 points. Chloe Kirkpatrick carried last night’s hot-shooting performance into tonight with 17. Kori Hollifield had 14 points with 4 threes and Jayden Myers scored 10.
Both teams enter next week’s District 1-2A Tournament. South Greene will be the No. 1 seed and host the winner of No. 5 Chuckey-Doak and No. 4 West Greene. South Greene finished up with their regular season on Friday night, but Chuckey-Doak still has one last game remaining. The Lady Knights will face Independent Athletic Ministries on Monday night at home.
